


from ridiculous to reasonable

by orphan_account



Series: why i'm going to hell (short works) [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Boys Kissing, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, I don't even know what I'm tagging anymore, John Watson Loves Sherlock Holmes, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Purple Prose, Romance, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlock Holmes Loves John Watson, Sherlock is a softie, Vanilla, basically just cute romance and stuff, imagine a slow burn but fast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:34:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27870001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It was like a camera sharpening into focus, words scrawled in clear black font onto white paper. It was clear as day on this misty, cold afternoon that Sherlock was in love with John. Irrationally. Infuriatingly.(Gifted to entanglednow because I love entanglednow.)
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: why i'm going to hell (short works) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2029117
Comments: 6
Kudos: 64





	from ridiculous to reasonable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [entanglednow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/gifts).



Sherlock cried once. Twice, actually. John thinks that he would at least have cried when he was born, maybe a few tears then, “Mummy, I require nicotine patches” or something along the lines of that. 

The second time was in a train carriage primed to explode. It was almost poetic as a memory, both their lives began in a different way entirely when they met, and now their lives were going to end together, while John was buzzing from adrenaline and trepidation, and those flashes you get when you think you’re really going to die.

Of course, that was a complete scam, and Sherlock’s tears were most likely controlled. Still, John would consider that actual crying, accompanied with Oscar-worthy acting. 

There was something there, that night, still. Something in the way Sherlock begged, literally on his knees, composure taking the next train. (Very funny.) Of all people, John expected Sherlock to spite death and fall to the ground in a dramatic swirl of coat, probably from a case. A momentous, silent, swift minute. (Don’t think about what made you sure that would be how Sherlock dies the second time. No.) 

The relief when Sherlock started chuckling was immediate and almost- for one tiny, tiny second- almost… disappointing. Don’t know why. The moment just felt so intimate somehow. It made no sense.

That was, John supposed, the suspension bridge effect, where you mistake danger for love. Best to be wary of weird psychological phenomenons around the walking enigma. 

Well, now’s the third time he’s seen Sherlock cry.

Of course, it wasn’t like he was present to Sherlock bawling, but when he came to, there was a fresh tear running down Sherlock’s left cheek, like a stray bullet shell on the ashy ground, reminding you a war has occurred. The effect was jarring.

Sherlock wiped it away hastily. John's vision blurred, then cleared.

“John.” Sherlock said his name like he wanted to own it.

“What?” It came out breathless, and more of a murmur. Oh, yeah. Knocked out with a steel pipe. It wasn’t the best angle to force someone into unconsciousness, but brute force alone was enough to summon blood and ouch, ouch, ouch.

“Don’t move.” John could hear the calculations enter Sherlock’s tone. He’d reached his threshold for emotional expression. Now he was going to lecture about the idiocy on moving after receiving a head wound. John waited, but Sherlock said nothing, just continued staring into John’s skull.

“Criminal?” Not even John knew why that was on his list of worries. It hardly was. What he really wanted to ask was why are you crying? but he had the sense not to, not if he wanted the conversation to continue. It’s fucking upsetting sometimes, the way they simply sweep conversations under the rug, refuse to acknowledge any misplaced feelings, have any heart-to-hearts. Everything’s nuanced and complicated with Sherlock, nothing goes by the laws of convention. 

“NSY arrived shortly after and apprehended him. They just had to pick the route with the most traffic.” Sherlock muttered the word ‘traffic’ as though he never heard of such an irritating inconvenience. God, the concussion was turning him dumb, why is he finding this amusing? John blinked, trying to chase the feelings out of his system. 

“Don’t blame them.” John had a better comeback ready, but he couldn’t get the effort up to say it. “Not their fault.” Yeah, that’ll suffice.

“You’re mildly concussed, a little bloody and possibly bruised, there might be mild side effects such as headaches and whatnot, but I suppose it should be manageable with medication. Remind me to get more paracetamol. No, ibuprofen. Both wouldn’t hurt.” It didn’t take more than five minutes for Sherlock to revert back to his signature style, technical, listing out symptoms as though he was discussing the pros and cons of a machine. Anyone listening in would consider it insensitive.

John knew better. That was meant as reassurance. It’s a form of sympathy, as much as Sherlock is capable of expressing. 

“All right. Can I get discharged?

“I’ll go do the paperwork.”

It’s after Sherlock left that it fully registered that Sherlock cried.

-

John’s not cruel, or unfeeling. He’s aware of how bringing up the topic of Sherlock so openly admitting weakness would be some kind of pride-crushing blow. So he doesn’t say anything.

Then again, curiosity doesn’t just leave once you decide to not indulge in it anymore. John’s a man of willpower, yes, but the situation is so bizarre that it definitely warrants an explanation. At least, that was his justifiable explanation for himself. 

He held it back anyway. Sherlock had fallen into one of those modes where he’s either having existential anguish or deep relaxation, doing nothing, consuming one or two biscuits with five cups of tea every day, playing the violin, twenty different pieces, all similarly haunting. 

“What’s this one called?” 

Sherlock turns abruptly, his bow in mid air, as though he was somewhere deep in Mind Palace when John mustered a tornado to sweep everything inside out. “What?”

“The one you’re playing.” John feels stupid. 

“Rachmaninoff Prelude in C minor. Violin version.” 

“It’s beautiful.” God, there was a reason why he was nicknamed Three Continents Watson, wasn’t there? He had smooth, careful pickup lines! At the very least, he was eloquent enough to know how to open a different line of conversation. Now, here he was, driving himself into a corner. 

Gnawing at his sides was the curiosity that wouldn’t go away.

There were so many questions John wanted to ask. So, what about the high functioning sociopathy? You and I both know that’s utter bullshit, but this is a very strong declaration of feelings. Crying by my bedside as though I got shot, when I merely got knocked out. I’m not trying to sound rude, I just genuinely want to know. I… 

John stopped himself. If he dared to pose all these questions, Sherlock would fire right back. He would reverse the scenario and throw them back in John’s face. He would ask John why he cared so much about him, too. Why does all this concern him so much? And then, there would be the fated question of romantic attraction.

(Frankly, John was being cowardly. He knew it too. Damn, Sherlock had gone so far as to indirectly express himself first. The ball is very much in John's court.)

The good old question that had been asked for decades, do you like-like me, scribbled in notes passed in elementary school, slurred during drinks with attractive people, now making the classic appearance in 221B. It should feel like the most normal thing to ask in a normal situation. If Sherlock were a woman that lived with John, it would've been brought up long ago. 

But that wasn't the case. But there's so much more than simple attraction, you plus me equals happiness. 

The question, buried deep into his heart, wasn't something he could simply ask. It felt precarious, a weapon to be handled carefully. No way either of them was going to open Pandora’s box. 

So John didn’t say anything more and drowned in the notes Sherlock was playing, the heartbreaking melodies almost soothing, an ode to his sorrow.

-

John wakes to the smell of tea. He’s about to greet Mrs Hudson when he realizes she’s nowhere in the flat. It’s Sherlock, making two cups. 

It’s so domestic, Sherlock in his fancy dressing gown, making tea. For the both of them. John's surprised by how he’s getting excited over fucking tea. 

He takes the black one, and watches as Sherlock stirs in a considerable amount of milk into his. John frowns. “You don’t usually take tea with milk.”

“I fancied some today.” Sherlock’s voice is impatient. Did John miss something? Or, given Sherlock’s hypomania, he probably is just in one of those moods where he wants to be passive aggressively disinterested. John should whip up charts and scales of Sherlock's moods and provide copies to everyone in Sherlock’s social circle for reference.

“Ah. Okay.” John gulps some of his tea. It’s scalding and bitter. He chokes, almost dropping the mug as he slams it onto the countertop. “Fuck.”

He’s barely gotten over the sensation of the burning before Sherlock thrusts an entire spoonful of sickly sweet honey in his mouth. John lets it slide down his throat, the relief immediate. He groans.

“Maybe next time, do not swallow water that has been just boiled.” The words are spoken so condescendingly, it’s just short of a sharp smack to John’s arse to be officially a quote from his mother.

It makes John want to cry. Here he is, an idiot, drinking hot tea and unable to ask a simple question. Do you like-like me? 

“Are you okay?” Sherlock’s face is still in his vision. He’s regal and aristocratic, casual charm spilling off him, he's an obscure Greek legend that came down to Earth to bless the world with his intellect, and here he is, sharing a flat with John, poor, pedestrian John, crying at his bedside, making him tea.

It’s so ridiculous. It only happens in bad sitcoms where there’s a couple and one is clearly out of the others league, but stays with his/her partner because they ‘just fit’. John doesn’t know whether that can be applied to this.

“I'm fine. Yeah." He sputters. 

Sherlock presses his lips together, in the way John had come to understand as the Sherlock version of cute lip bites. For a second he wants to spill it all out, ask all the questions, cut himself up and let his guts spill all over the floor, let Sherlock analyse it from what he ate last night. 

"Sherlock. What do I mean to you?" 

Sherlock freezes, and does a double take, looking like he was scouring his entire vocabulary of twenty languages, ten dialects, fifty ciphers, for a single appropriate answer. "Sorry?"

"As in. Do you… do we… you cried." As he enunciates the word, Sherlock blinks. The most brilliant man in the world didn't think John would ask that. Neither did himself. Stranger things have happened. Too late to back out now. What has he done? "When I was in the hospital." 

"Yes. You looked very hurt." John sensed Sherlock wanting to flee, just like John wants to, jump out the window and onto Mrs Hudson's bins rather than continue this conversation. Still, his eyes remain stuck on John's. They are emerald green in this light, mesmerising exotic cat eyes that hold so much power, optical illusions that make you feel like you're drowning. 

"You're evading the question. I just want to know… whether you do care about me." It was a million steps back from anything related to love. Sherlock cares about his violin, too, and would probably mourn it for days if it broke. John feels like that sometimes. As though he is another replaceable object that can be put on a shelf, the most ordinary thing in Sherlock's life. That thought filled him with undignified rage. 

"Of course." Sherlock looks confused. 

"Wait, really?" 

"Yes." Sherlock pronounces the word slowly. John wondered if it was for his benefit, or pure dramatics. Probably the latter. 

John opened his mouth. Closed it. 

"Oh, John. If you're looking for specifics, you can simply ask. Miscommunication is ridiculously inconvenient and will result in serious misunderstandings. What else do you want to know?" 

The world brightened and birds chirped. Morning was truly beginning. Warmth entered the room. 

"Do you care about me more or less than your violin?" 

"Now that's a question an intrusive, obsessive partner would ask." 

Ouch. But not that much. Sherlock's out of his stroppy mood. Sherlock's bouncing back in the usual sardonic manner he does. 

"I need to know."

"I can't stand speaking in metaphors and wildly vague comparisons." Now that John's in a sated mood, this comment managed to spark that fire of endearing hate inside him. 

"Fine. Let's do it the scientific way." Before Sherlock could ask, John went to the living room to grab some markers. 

… 

"Here." 

John drawed up a scale of 1 to 10 on three pieces of A4 paper taped to each other. 

"What's this?" Sherlock's positively scowling at the implication he had to be babied into talking.

"I'm going to ask questions, and you're going to answer them, since you refuse to use your own words."

"Is this kindergarten?"

Maybe John was high on the tea. Maybe John was high on joy. Either way, John pushed the marker into Sherlock's fingers. Sherlock made an annoyed noise. John glares, then Sherlock looks at the scale, then relents by pulling the paper closer to him. 

It was kind of ridiculous. They were two grown men sitting on the floor, John watching aforementioned genius Greek god was holding a marker and waiting for his instructions. 

"I'm going to name something. It could be solid or abstract, and you have to mark down your personal preference to it on a scale of one to ten."

"What are the qualifications for one to be classified at each stage?"

"One is 'I want it to die in a fire'. Two is 'I hate it'. Three is 'I'm annoyed by it'. Four is 'I can tolerate it'. Five is neutral. Six is 'I welcome it, but I don't actively pursue it'. Seven is 'I like it'. Eight is 'I love it'. Nine is 'I want it with me forever'. Ten is 'I can't live without it'." 

"The wording of the last few digits is--"

"My scale. My rules."

They stare at each other for seven seconds, then Sherlock huffs and refocused his attention onto the scale in front of him. "I suppose questionable scales are marginally better than serieses of vague questions." 

"In your heart, or brain, where do you put… let's say, Molly at?" 

Sherlock scribbled a skull and crossbones onto the 5. 

"Is this some kind of reference to her working in a morgue?" John chuckles. 

"Nope, it's a reference to her bright and sparkly personality." Now Sherlock was actually laughing too. It was comforting. 

Few minutes later, almost everyone John could think of was on the scale. Reasonably predictable. Greg ("Who's that? Just kidding") had gotten a 6. John should phone him to celebrate. Mrs Hudson took the highest score so far at 7. Well deserved. Mycroft got a 2.5, which was 2.5 more points than John expected him to get. Anderson got a 3. Possibly due to repentance. Donovan got 2. Moriarty got 5. Irene got 6, which was worrying, to say the least. General clients got 4. Mary got 6. John stopped worrying about Irene then. Eurus got 5. His parents got 6.5.

It was, well, you know, watching Sherlock fill in the scale like it was some kind of puzzle. It was entertaining, hearing him spit insults to those who ranked low, lighthearted compliments to those ranked high. 

"Now we move onto inanimate objects." 

Sherlock's violin took 8. His skull took 7. Science took 9. Tea took 7. Cases took 9. Fuck. John was truly fighting a losing battle against liveless entities. Wasn't he tempted to smash each and every one of those. There was the problem of dealing with abstract things like science and cases, but he supposed he could-- stop being such a drama queen and know his place.

"Anything else?" Sherlock's tone was conversational. It also had that usual air of importance. 

"Yes." Given how it was, John supposed he would get a 7. Not the best score, but very good given the circumstances. Sigh. "Me." 

"Nine point five."

Sherlock didn't write that down, just continued to penetrate John with his gaze as he spouted those words, completely unaware of how he just knocked all the wind out of John. 

"Nine… point five?" No way. 

"Yes." There it goes, that purposely slow enunciation again. 

"You… find me more important than cases and science?" 

“That’s not what I said. I’m not ranking any of these based on importance, because if that’s the case, science would surely be a ten. I’m ranking these based on personal preference. You told me that.” Sherlock barely sounded embarrassed about it all, but John felt like he was sporting a blush. 

“I’m a nine point five.” John says aloud, more to himself.

“Yes.” This time, the slow enunciation was sarcastically deliberate.

“I…” John looked to the floor. And here he was, assuming that Sherlock was all brains and no heart, didn’t give a fuck about him more than a violin. Here Sherlock was, spending precious time he could use for experiments and cases and general shenanigans, sitting cross-legged on the floor of 221B, drawing shapes on scales. 

“Do you think I would’ve cried if I didn’t really care?” John’s head shot up. Those words weren’t careful or mocking. They were fast, soft utterances. Pure, unadulterated emotion in eleven words. The way Sherlock pressed his lips together and avoided John’s gaze.

It was like a camera sharpening into focus, words scrawled in clear black font onto white paper. It was clear as day on this misty, cold afternoon that Sherlock was in love with John. Irrationally. Infuriatingly. Sherlock looked so much younger, sharp jawline and cheekbones now subdued, curls springier and livier. And those eyes. The usual intelligent twinkle. The kaleidoscope of blue-green shards. His lips, full and quivering.

“What does it take to get me to ten?”

Sherlock looked up. 

John scooted closer to him. 

John pressed his lips to Sherlock’s. It was beyond tender. However John envisioned the moment, it turned out the opposite way. In those fever dreams and late night fantasies, everything was steamy and warm, urgent and frantic, each of them ravenous, ravishing each other. In reality, it was nearly twelve in the afternoon, there's a little drizzle outside, the effect meant a chilly day in bustling London, and John’s lips were chapped. 

But the scene was surreal, ethereal, and delicate. So many unsaid words replaced by Sherlock applying pressure. Kissing him back. He tasted like stray grains of sugar from the tea, nowhere near as sweet as the milk inside Sherlock’s mouth, warm and wet, his tongue insistent. 

Maybe John expected fireworks, or at least sparks. There were none. There were only his fingers in Sherlock’s curls, Sherlock’s right hand cupping the back of his neck, the patter of rain on windows. It was intimate. Gentle. Domestic. All those words used to describe the vulnerable times where mutual affection happens. Bittersweet. Inspiring. Magical. All those words used in long, long romance stories with satisfying endings. 

The consent itself was what made the scenario unchaste. The wild, fervent contact of the gentlest brush of lips. The fact that John and Sherlock, two prideful, independent individuals were displaying all their weaknesses, showing they care, baring their hearts to each other. 

The love came from the mutual acceptance of each other, imperfect as they were. They had danced around for fucking years. 

There were so many things that belonged to them, dissimilar as they were. The glances over tea. The adrenaline when running down back alleys. The selfless actions that speak louder than words. The trust. The respect. The way they stayed together, come hell or high water. 

All condensed into one kiss. 

So when they finally pulled apart, they laughed at their idiocy for a full five minutes. Then they moved on to the fun part, which was Lestrade calling with a case. 

Sitting in the cab, Sherlock intertwined his fingers with John. John squeezed back, thinking back to how just a few hours ago, he thought 'they just fit' was a shitty excuse for lazy romance plots, but now it seemed entirely reasonable.

**Author's Note:**

> So, that was it. Please leave kudos and constructive criticism! Thank you!


End file.
